Presales Storage Architect – Unstructured Data (f/m/d)

Presales Storage Architect – Unstructured Data (f/m/d)
This role has been designed as 'Hybrid' with a requirement that you will work on average 2 days per week from an HPE office.
Who We Are:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today’s complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what’s next. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good. If you are looking to stretch and grow your career our culture will embrace you. Open up opportunities with HPE.
Job Description:
We’re seeking an experienced Storage Architect with strong expertise in unstructured data, AI and analytics workloads, and modern file and object storage architectures. This is a highly visible, customer-facing role with significant influence on solution design, customer adoption, and product strategy.
The ideal candidate combines deep storage fundamentals with a strong understanding of how data moves through modern AI and analytics environments. You will help customers design, size, validate, and optimize storage architectures supporting AI inference, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), analytics, data lakes, and other data-intensive workloads.
Role Overview:
As a Storage Architect – Unstructured Data, AI & Analytics, you will:
Partner with customers to architect scalable file and S3 object storage solutions for AI, analytics, and enterprise workloads.
Understand application data flows, data lifecycle requirements, and performance characteristics to recommend the right storage architecture.
Size storage solutions based on capacity, throughput, latency, network bandwidth, growth, availability, and workload requirements.
Lead technical workshops, assessments, benchmarks, and hands-on proofs of concept (POCs).
Provide strong subject matter expertise in S3 object storage and foundational knowledge of NFS and SMB.
Apply knowledge of AI inference, RAG, data lakes, and analytics pipelines to storage architecture and design decisions.
Collaborate with product management and engineering to translate customer requirements into product and roadmap priorities.
Bring competitive knowledge and market awareness to customer discussions and internal strategy.
Travel as needed to support customers, partners, and strategic opportunities.
Key Responsibilities
Architect and document enterprise-scale file and object storage solutions.
Analyze customer data flows, workloads, growth patterns, and data management requirements.
Size storage environments for performance, capacity, resiliency, and scalability.
Lead and execute hands-on POCs validating performance, integration, scalability, and operational requirements.
Design storage architectures for AI inference, RAG, analytics, and data lake workloads, with consideration for throughput, latency, metadata, network design, and data accessibility.
Help customers understand how data is ingested, stored, processed, protected, moved, governed, and consumed across modern data pipelines.
Translate customer requirements and field experience into actionable product feedback and roadmap recommendations.
Provide competitive analysis, technical positioning, and solution guidance to sales and technical teams.
Present architectures and technical recommendations to both executive and deeply technical audiences.
Support strategic presales engagements, RFIs/RFPs, solution sizing, and technical justification.
Required Qualifications
7+ years of experience designing, implementing, or supporting enterprise storage and data architectures.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Strong customer-facing architecture, consulting, or presales experience.
Strong foundational knowledge of S3 object storage, including buckets, objects, APIs, authentication, data protection, and common application integration patterns.
Working knowledge of enterprise file protocols, particularly NFS and SMB.
Experience sizing storage solutions based on capacity, performance, growth, network, and application requirements.
Demonstrated ability to plan, configure, execute, and troubleshoot technical POCs.
Understanding of modern AI and analytics data pipelines, including AI inference, RAG, vector databases, data lakes/Lakehouse’s, and large-scale analytics workloads.
Ability to discuss storage within the broader context of data flow, data lifecycle, data management, protection, governance, and application consumption.
Strong understanding of storage performance concepts including throughput, latency, IOPS, metadata performance, concurrency, and network bandwidth.
Excellent communication, presentation, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
Willingness and ability to travel for customer engagements.
AI & Analytics Skills
Strong candidates will have experience with several of the following:
AI inference and RAG architectures
Vector databases, embeddings, and retrieval workflows
Data lakes and Lakehouse architectures
Analytics platforms and distributed query engines
GPU-based infrastructure and AI data pipelines
High-throughput data ingestion and processing
S3-based application architectures
Data movement between compute, storage, cloud, and AI platforms
Performance characterization and workload benchmarking
Storage Technologies & Platforms
Experience with one or more enterprise file or object storage platforms is preferred, including:
Dell PowerScale / ObjectScale
Pure Storage FlashBlade
NetApp ONTAP / StorageGRID
VAST Data
Scality
Other enterprise file or S3-compatible object storage platforms
Cloud & Competitive Skills
Strong pluses include:
Familiarity with AWS, Azure, and GCP storage services and integration patterns.
Understanding of hybrid and multi-cloud data architectures.
Knowledge of modern AI and analytics platforms and their storage requirements.
Strong awareness of the competitive enterprise file and object storage landscape.
Experience in technical presales, consulting, solution architecture, or customer advisory roles.
Why HPE?
At HPE, you will join a highly collaborative and customer-focused Data Solutions team that combines deep technical expertise with a shared passion for winning together. Our culture empowers people to take ownership, make an impact and bring new ideas to life.
We value diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity and innovation, and believe our best results come from combining individual strengths as one team. You will find an environment where trust, collaboration and enthusiasm are part of how we work, and where talented people can grow, thrive and enjoy making a difference for customers and colleagues alike. This closely reflects HPE’s culture principles of exploring fearlessly, winning together, building trust, valuing different perspectives and cultivating joy through meaningful work.
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Come and join the future of Data Solutions, Hybrid Cloud and AI-powered Data Services with HPE!
Help some of Switzerland’s most innovative organizations modernize, protect and unlock the full value of their data. Join a great team, work with leading technologies and bring your ideas, energy and experience to a company where you can make a meaningful impact, grow and thrive.
HPE is:
Ranked 9th on Fortune’s 2023 list of Best Workplaces in Technology
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